


the stars began to burn

by The_Wavesinger



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 10:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: Zuko, after the war, and the ghosts that remain.





	the stars began to burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UnapologeticallyMeatwad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnapologeticallyMeatwad/gifts).

> The title is from The Journey by Mary Oliver (...irony? mostly that line been stuck in my head).

After the coronation, when Zuko’s finally alone, he stands in front of the mirror and touches the flame with trembling hands.

Azula wore it before him, Ozai before her, Azulon before him, Sozin before him and the line stretching all the way back to Hatsuo the Uniter. The symbol of the Fire Lord, of their sacred duty.

Ozai’s sharp, cruel eyes and Azula’s wild smile taunt him, the flame light on their heads, _belonging_ there in a way it never will on his.

He blinks, and the image wavers. His own scarred face peers back at him, shadowed in candlelight.

—

The palace is—strange.

It was not quite home, the first time he was back, a skin he fit ill in. Now, though, there are ghosts in every corner. Ursa, tucking him into bed at night in his old bedroom with a kiss and a story. Ozai flicking his sleeve at him and dismissing him, over and over again. Azula shooting sparks at him, playful and laughing, chasing him around,_ it’s a game, silly, learn to firebend and it’ll be fun!_

Fire blows across his back, scorching his face, burning his body, echoes of an old life in every step.

—

He thinks—

But no.

Azula isn’t here, of course she’s not here, she can’t be here, because she’s gone, she’s lost, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

No.

She’s not here. She’s in prison, and who put her there, Zuzu, your little sister you were supposed to protect, your mother asked her to take care of her and look where she is now, what a fine job you’ve done.

“Zuko?”

He blinks. Forces himself to focus.

Katara is looking at him with furrowed eyebrows, concern written across her face.

“I’m fine,” he says, and he almost believes himself.

—

Zuko visits Azula every week. Twice or thrice a week, sometimes, more if he can, less if he’s busy, but at least once a week he goes to her cell, sits outside and listens to her rant and rave.

“You’re pathetic, Zuzu,” she says, “Look at you, losing everything me and Father worked for, giving it away to those barbarians and peasants. Not even strong enough to be a good Fire Lord. Father should have killed you while he had the chance, weakling.”

The words are barbed arrows. He lets them sink into his flesh and almost relishes the pain.

—

Zuko used to flinch when Azula talked to him, some scared little-boy part of him that wanted to hide in his mommy’s skirts. But he’s good at showing a brave face, now, has learned, at long last, to not rise to her taunts.

Besides, it’s so much easier (harder) this way, when her eyes are wild and her hair uncombed and she’s laughing madly, her voice a shade too high. When she mutters to herself and calls out to Ursa and Ozai and Zuko. Everyone who won’t come to help her. She’s almost crueller than in her moments of lucidity.

—

“She’s not going to get any better,” Katara tells Zuko softly, after a meeting he’d arrived late to because he lost track of the time in Azula’s cell. “Not for a long time, maybe not ever.”

“I know,” Zuko says. Then, “If it was Sokka—”

“It’s not good for you,” she says, pressing her lips together, frowning at the gold-trimmed tapestries on the wall as if they’ve done her personal harm (come to think of it, the commissioners of the tapestries at least probably did). But she doesn’t bring the subject up again.

He and Katara understand each other.

—

The training room holds too many memories. Ozai’s disapproving voice, snapping at his poor form and pathetic flame, urging Azula on and praising her perfection. The thick walls hiding his screams when Azula accidentally-on-purpose burns him to Ozai’s barely-concealed smirk that she must have picked up on. The scent of seared fresh and bright, red-hot flame pulsing, and Azula’s frightened-sorry-gloating tears soaking his clothes.

He practises in the wide open courtyards instead, and maybe that’s not much better. But the smell of jasmine wafts through the air and sounds of life echo through the palace. It’s a start, at least.

—

Azula was too impatient to master statecraft. Expected, for a second daughter and a firebending prodigy, and someone to whom ruling came as instinct.

Zuko pored over his books, learning the dirty mechanics of running a country, the arts of peace and the tools of war. Azula made fun of him for it, incessantly, messing up his careful work and interrupting lessons. (Ozai, Zuko remembers, hadn’t commented. By then he’d already given up on Zuko.)

Azula’s mockery still rings in his ears. He doesn’t care anymore; a nation and his friends are looking to him to rule, and rule well.

—

Zuko counts the days, and knows when it’ll be the anniversary, for Katara. The day she lost her mother.

He says they should do an exhibition match together. When he tells her what the date will be, her eyes narrow, but she still agrees to it.

The stadium—

It’s loud. There are crowds, screaming, and for a moment he’s a little boy again, begging his father not to burn him.

But no. He’s on his feet, opposite a friend. He’s the Fire Lord, and he won’t falter or plead. Not this time.

He smirks at Katara, friendly taunting. “Let’s begin.”

—

(Fifteen years on, his ghosts will still haunt the palace. By then, they’ll be old friends, the scars scabbed over and stretched too tight, not bleeding raw and uncomfortable. After a rebellion or two and a secret plot to overthrow him, Azula settles into something of the person she was, before, and more of the person she builds herself into with fire and blood and sweat. When he and Katara spar, familiar movements turn into an almost-dance, dragon and wave.

But that’s all in the future. Today, for a moment, he sinks into his fire, and takes the first step.)


End file.
